Matt motioned to a group of bushes that were thick and low to the ground. He dropped his bag and instructed Steele to set up next to him.
The sun was nearly set, but Matt knew there was still too much twilight for the night gear. He slid his rifle from its case and began working the scope into place. He was in his element now. Every move had been rehearsed over and over. Besides quarterly training, Matt had been on an average of twenty sniper assignments a year for the past eight years. It was the part of the job that made him the most comfortable. He could be invisible, yet strike the biggest blow for the good guys. He stopped to take a quick check of the location. He looked, listened, and smelled his surroundings, but found nothing that concerned him.
Matt went back to adjusting his scope when he heard Steele say, “There’s something strange about this place.”
Matt saw her gazing through a pair of field glasses at the cabin, then went back to examining his site. He was familiar with virgin nerves. On his first sniper job, he nearly peed in his pants as he fired the first shot. He didn’t want to appear cocky, but he couldn’t afford to waste time looking for ghosts either. “What don’t you like?”
“Do you see all the cut down trees around the building?”
Matt turned his head just long enough to see the tree stumps surrounding the cabin. “What about them?”
“Well, like I told you, people cut down the trees to deprive a fire of fuel around their home.”
“Yeah.”
“If these people went through all the trouble of chain-sawing all of those trees. .then why is there still a cord of wood leaning up against the house? And why is there still a pile of kindling next to the wood?”
It was a good question.
“And another thing,” she continued. “Do you see the roof? It’s not made of the shingle material you normally see up here. A few years back it became fashionable to pitch the roof with lightweight steel panels. They last forever and have no maintenance. Even though it looks like redwood, those panels are made out of metal. They can’t burn.”
Another good observation, Matt thought. He put down his rifle and reached for his binoculars. With the two of them gazing at the cabin through binoculars, Steele said, “Why would someone with a metal roof clear out all of the trees around their place?”
“You have an idea?” he said.
She ducked down next to Matt and whispered. “Yes.” She turned and pointed toward the woods. “I think this is an ambush. I don’t think there’s anybody inside of the cabin. I think that the area was cleared out so we would be sitting ducks. Those two stones are in perfect position for a perimeter attack on the cabin, but if the enemy were behind us. .” She looked at Matt as if she was going too fast for him. “Do you understand?
“Yes, of course.” It was flimsy, but plausible. Oliver Stone would have loved it.
“You have to warn the others.”
Matt had to look away. He was having trouble thinking straight and his feelings for Steele were damaging his focus. He gazed into the woods as if he was considering her theory, but he was really buying time. There was no way he was going to break the radio silence over her borderline premise.
“Hey, are you going to warn them, or not?”
Matt brought his eyes up to meet hers. “Listen, what you bring up are good points, but maybe you’re reading too much into it. It’s possible that there’s a simple explanation.”
“Such as?”
“It’s possible that the owners cut the trees down first, then later added the steel roof.”
“What about the wood?”
“Again, it could have been placed there long after the forest fire.”
Her eyes drifted toward the ground. “You think I’m just a nervous R.A. frightened by my own shadow.”
Matt looked straight at her, but said nothing. She needed some kind of support and Matt groped for the right words without patronizing her. He looked at his watch. It was 5:55. Just five minutes before Nick would begin the assault on the cabin. He opened his palms. “All right, here’s what we do,” he handed her his rifle. “You know how to use one of these?”
She shot him a look.
“Okay, okay. You stay here, while I go back and tell Nick about your observations.”
She smiled again and then it hit him. She could manipulate him with just a look. This both excited and frightened him.
“Stay low,” he demanded. Then pointing toward the cabin, he said, “And keep your focus on the target. Don’t move a muscle until I get back.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the woods. “Okay, hurry back.”
He grabbed his Glock and put the silencer in his pocket. As he turned to leave he felt her gentle touch on his arm. She whispered, “Be careful.”
Matt felt like he was back in high school again. His cheeks were flush and a smile lingered on his face as he crept back toward Nick’s position.
A few minutes later he was making sure his footsteps could be heard as he walked into the clearing that surrounded the boulder Nick and Dave Tanner hid behind. He held his hands up high while he approached the two agents who were training their pistols at his chest.
“It’s Matt,” he whispered.
Nick’s face screwed up into a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
Matt lowered himself to his knees next to Nick. He told his partner about Steele’s thoughts on the unusually large clearing around the cabin, the roof and pile of wood. Nick got to his feet and peered over the boulder at the silent cabin with Matt over his shoulder. They both returned to their knees.
“She seems to think that it’s an ambush. She thinks they’re behind us in the woods.”
Nick appeared to be giving the idea some thought. He pressed his hand to the ground as if he was feeling for the warmth of a previous visitor. Before he could say anything, he reached for the cell phone in his pocket. Matt didn’t hear it ring, but he knew it would be set on vibrate.
Nick put the phone to his ear and listened. His face dropped into a deep maddening glower. A minute later he returned the phone to his pocket and looked past Matt’s shoulder into the woods.
“Who was that?” Dave Tanner asked.
Nick was squinting now. “That was Silk.”
Matt was beginning to feel anxious. He waited while Nick worked it out in his head.
Nick reached down and gripped the handle to his duffel bag. “Get your gear,” he said. “We’re going to the other side of this boulder.”
They scurried around the large rock, leaving themselves completely exposed to an attack from the cabin.
“Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Tanner asked in a high voice.
Nick rummaged through his duffle bag. “Shit, where’s the infrared scope? Do you have it, Dave?”
Even in the dark Matt could tell that Nick looked pale. A bead of sweat seeped down his temple. Nick growled, “The Sheriff couldn’t be with us tonight because he was on a manhunt-remember? He had a killer to catch.”
Matt didn’t like the sound of it already.
“Well,” Nick spat out the words, “he is currently sitting in a chair in a barber shop in downtown Payson getting a haircut. According to Silk he seemed to be yucking it up with the boys in the shop.”
Matt was trying hard to piece it together. “You think he set us up?”
Nick found the infrared and slid the narrow tube over the edge of the rock like a periscope. The bottom of the tube fed into a handheld device with a green screen. As he pushed some buttons on the device, he said, “We’ll find out in a minute.”
All three men watched the screen come to life. Nick slowly twisted the tube from right to left, all the time paying attention to the display in his hand. It remained a constant green field for a full minute. Suddenly, a tiny red blob came into view. Even though it appeared small on the screen, Matt knew it was too large to be a small animal. Nick wasn’t ready to pronounce anything until they saw the appendage move in such a way that there was no mistake. It was a human. “Son of a bitch,” Nick murmured.